When my children were small, and I began to be outspoken about family life, one of the big things was the concept of me-time. Another similar one was dating-time for the parents of small children.
Mainstream ideas of family life were so far away from my reality that I just had to start talking about it.
Today I reflect on me-time because I had a lot of it yesterday, randomly.
My sons were gaming, my daughters were together in the city, and my husband was with his Danish colleagues. For the first time in many years, it was (almost) just me.
When my kids were small, and I realized the craziness of mainstream (even state-supported) advice for families, me-time was a huge thing. Young parents were told they needed time to themselves, alone or together as a couple. It is one of the returning questions: Don't we need time alone?
You know what? (Warning rant coming)
When you have children, they are YOUR children. YOUR problem. The splitting of families and the attack on real-life connectedness spreading through modern lifestyle has made it “normal” to leave almost newborns in the hands of strangers, to leave responsibility for the thriving of teenagers to other teenagers and stressed out school teachers, to try to get rid of the children as fast and as much as possible. From this arises the idea of me-time—an insane concept to force into a reality of parenting.
When you are a parent, it is a full-time around the clock thing! Your me-time is the time you get to spend with your children. The little moments where you don’t have to cook, do laundry, sleep, or put out fires.
This time is the most precious time you will ever get anyway, so why try to avoid it?
Before you know it, they are adults doing their own thing, and you wish you had to read another story, cook another porridge, or listen to another idea.
I enjoyed my day, and I enjoyed the afternoon when they all came back: My son in law and his best friend, my daughters, my husband, my sons, my friends. We cooked, we laughed, we shared stories, we sat down in the sunset to have dinner, and it was happy days.
Love and light
Cecilie Conrad
# 143 of my 2023 writing challenge - Read them all here
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